Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Serial Entrepreneur?

The sources of new job creation have taken on enormous importance as millions of jobs have been lost around the globe. The Kaufman Foundation found that U.S. startups (firms less than one year old) create an average of three million new jobs annually and “without startups there would be no net job growth in the U.S. economy.” In fact, even when startups are excluded, young firms (one to five years old) account for approximately two-thirds of job creation. This shows that it is not just small businesses, but startup businesses in particular that have long been the engines of job creation, making entrepreneurs crucial drivers in the race to put people back to work.

This makes it urgent that the strategy for stimulating global economic growth includes reliable ways to identify those individuals who have the characteristics to succeed at building a viable business. Venture capitalists and other funders in particular will benefit from being able to compare the attributes of a funding applicant to a successful entrepreneur’s profile before investing.

This article focuses on serial entrepreneurs, who are defined as those who have created more than one successful business which employs others. Concentrating our study exclusively on this subset of serial entrepreneurs is intentional, the better to distinguish the defining characteristics of successful entrepreneurship.